Pursuant to my previous post
Here is what I learned today:
If you don’t feed a certain person before an event, all he’ll want to talk about is food. He will ask you questions about local cuisine, to which you will respond that if he’s never had a Korean BBQ beef and kimchi burrito — like the one you had last Tuesday which was so delicious the very memory of it just pains you — he ought to try one while he’s in town. He will say, “That sounds delicious, I love California fusion. Where can I get that?” You will tell him where he can find that food truck, and he will relay that information to someone wearing a black suit whose job, it seems, is to keep a running list of food this certain person wants to eat.
And that will be it.
You will have been in a room with some Pulitzer Prize winners and a certain person and what will you have done? You will have recommend a Korean BBQ beef and kimchi burrito. Moreover, one of his staffers will come up to you afterwards and congratulate you on your recommendation, because a certain person “really does love fusion.” Moreover, you won’t be able to write about it specifically until you receive some clearance from a certain person’s people, even though all you talked about was food.
When you express via email that you’re not sure why your conversation about food needs to be cleared — because apparently you’ve forgotten all your technology was removed from your person before you were allowed to be in the same room as a certain person — you are informed by everyone you know via multiple technologies that a certain person is now a vegan and your conversation with him and his subsequent behavior may lead to future awkwardness.
But a certain person’s people are fine with this post as it’s written so you post it.
I was about to bring up the vegan thing…
Apparently I’m the only person in the world who didn’t know that.
I didn’t.
Slick Willie strikes again.
Me neither, and I’m a vegetarian ex-vegan.
I think he’s always described it as “mostly vegan.” Any way, it’s California, I’m pretty sure there’s a tofu option.
On the question of whether this person is a vegan, might it depend on what the meaning of “is” is?
“He’s spending a year dead for tax reasons.”
No, it was news to me as well.
Maybe the person sometimes eats vegan food, but does that really mean he is a vegan? Don’t be such an essentialist, man.
(And thus SEK’s pleasant diversion from grading papers has been ruined.)
As a professor of mine put it, I’m a vegetarian, except when I’m eating meat.
Yeah, but he has that student body president personality- where I bet it seemed like he really cared about that burrito and talking to you. Also, he probably does want to eat it. Nice one, SEK!
History has proven that he’s very difficult man to tempt.
Aaaand you beat me to it.
well yeah, except when he’s tempted.
God…now I really want a fusion burrito…
I really like the Korreto food truck in San Francisco. Although I prefer Senior Sesig, the Filipino/Mexican fusion food truck.
what, no irish/russian fusion food truck? cabbage blinis!
On Friday I celebrated my brand spanking new journeyman ticket with dinner at Carino, a new and highly regarded Japanese/Italian fusion restaurant. Among other delicious items, a dish of seared foie gras, braised daikon, dashi and asparagus was so good that only the impossibility of a walk-in table allows me to type this instead of jumping into the car and roaring over there.
I know people mock fusion, but speaking as a former professional chef it is wonderful to be startled by my food. Especially startled so pleasantly.
Kogi is pretty awesome. I’m still peeved they no longer visit Altadena one night a week.
Are you in Altadena? Small world. They’ve been having some pretty good food trucks up here recently, but Kogi must have been back before I moved here :(
Then again, when I want Korean, I prefer more authentic with a trip to K-town: Dong Il Jang, Soot Bull Jeep, Sowoon Galbi etc. Although Cham, in Pasadena, is pretty yummy and reasonably priced, for fusion.
I’m in Pasadena, actually, but Altadena was by far the closest they came (regularly), especially in the evenings.
In San Francisco I see the occasional sign in a restaurant window saying That Certain Person ate there. It’s usually spicy and asian. I’m beginning to think his hamburger reputation was a bit of hype….
There’s a pho place in Saigon that has a huge picture of him on the wall for the same reason.
Bush visited one as well. I found his photo on the wall eventually. It was about the size of a large postcard and stuck on the wall of the back stairs beside the toilet.
I’ve been to that Saigon restaurant, though it was so long ago I don’t recall how good the food was.
Not bad! Though it’s tricky to find bad food in Saigon.
Funny, I’ve been there too! (Though it was about 10 years ago.) I seem to recall it was pretty good, but I’ve always much preferred the noodle soup you get from street vendors in Bangkok to Pho, and it’s disappointing to me that the latter has caught on so big in the States while the former hasn’t.
Ummmm, most Thai street food is vietnamese. That soup, basically, is pho.
Interesting… would love to hear more about that. I know it’s very similar, but the result is quite different, and much tastier in my opinion.
Well, it’s actually pretty similar to the great Mexican food in the US, illegal immigrants open restaurants, food stands, carts, trucks etc. In Thailand those people come from Isan province, from Burma, from Laos, and from viet nam.
As for the difference, I’m not sure what difference you mean. Thai food sometimes seems a little oriented towards sweet tastes, and the French influence is a lot smaller, but in what comes down to noodles and garnish in a clear chicken broth, there doesnt seem to be much to distinguish them.
Now i do have to admit that I have not eaten pho in viet nam, but I have eaten an awful lot of noodle soup in bangkok, Isan, and chiang Mai, and I find it very similar to what is served in good pho joints here in Canada, the difference mainly being fewer nose-to-tail mystery ingredients, and more high end seafood and western style beef and pork. Which is NOT an improvement by the way. God i loved the crisped pig ear and wood ear mushroom soup I used to eat in chiang Mai.
I think it’s at least possible that, in the time between being governor of Arkansas in the ’80s and being Global Citizen Prime in the ’10s, his palate has broadened.
And his arteries have narrowed. The burgers no doubt went out the window after the bypass surgery.
In SF, check out the HRD Coffee Shop for kimchi burritos. A total dive, but great stuff. The one flaw is that they aren’t open late – precisely the time of day when I would drunkenly crave one.
And that will be it.
We’re you hoping for flowers?
i was trying to think of a vegan question, but couldn’t work byrd in. you’d think that would be easier.
anyway, i saw him at babbo after his veganism began, so I’m skeptical.
never saw him at New York Kom Tang Kalbi House. real charcoal. raw crab app 4 free. that’s the place to go in NYC. i like the rib steak, unmarinated.
http://events.nytimes.com/mem/nycreview.html?res=980CE6DE1631F937A15753C1A9679C8B63
An old friend of mine, of Polish descent, was officially vegetarian, but loved kielbasa . . .
IYKWIM
Wow, a Korean BBQ beef and kimchi burrito sounds fantastic. If I were as rich as a certain person, I’d be flying to California this afternoon to get one.
Alas, I am not, so I will have to content myself with dreams.
I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to make one at home.
Waiting for Ann Althouse to tell me what this means.
“I did not have meat with that sandwich.”
Is a burrito a sandwich? Btw, my wife, born in Guatemala and grew up in Mexico, says “burrito” with an English accent when speaking Spanish, because she considers them (delicious but) Californian, not Mexican.
“Is a burrito a sandwich?”
That is actually a lively question of law.
You’re just lucky the certain person had apparently gotten laid already that morning.
“Why din’t anyone tell me about ‘binders of women’?”
So I taken it the onion rings were a big hit?
Well, at least he’s given up Big Macs
Whoever this is, I mean.
If a certain person’s wife is hard nosed about a certain person’s diet. Not being able to post further details about leading a certain vegan off the straight and narrow might be the wisest course.
Certain person’s wife’s enforcers are apparently ex-seals.
Imagine both the Secret Service and the State Department (and likely, intelligence agencies) getting you in trouble with your spouse. Yeesh.
But hey, getting in trouble over a kimchi barbecue burrito from a food truck and getting in trouble over a blow job…to me, that’s totally in the same ball park (not even kidding).
Pete Singer’s Paris exemption exists for people like a certain person. As an accidental vegan, I can appreciate the “infidelity.”
If it makes you feel any better, SEK, I once met both Colorado governor (at the time) Bill Owens and then president Clinton on the same day. I wanted to ask Owens a “smart” question about state gun laws, and I wanted to ask Clinton what he thought of reactions to the Brady Bill. In the end, I only managed to say to Owens, “I’m a Colorado resident, duh-hurrrrr” and he replied, “Good for you!” in a genial but douche-y way. I said nothing to Clinton, just grinned like an idiot.
tl;dr: You didn’t do so badly.
The CNN interview where he talks about going vegan is over a year old; maybe he’s eased off it a little and gone “lessmeatarian“, to use Mark Bittman’s awkward but apropos neologism.
So… were you ALL hungry when you started making comments? :P